Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.

Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!

A fifth class -- Mechromancer -- will be added in DLC Oct. 16 (free to anyone who preordered). She can summon a "Deathtrap" and will have a newbie friendly skill tree for FPS-challenged players as well as a hardcore tree.

How about some gameplay from PAX (August 2012)?

What else?

It'll be Steamworks. Very nice.

The original Vault Hunters will all be in game as NPCs, including a 'live' Lilith.

There's a dashing bad guy, Handsome Jack, who has taken over the Hyperion Corporation and built himself a moon base from which he can shoot down robot reinforcements.

Gun manufacturers will be more significant in the new game, including Bandit weapons with things like beer bottle scopes. Non-gun loot (grenades, mods, artifacts, skins, heads, etc.) will also be randomized and way more diverse than BL1.

Main game bank for storing items and transferring items between characters.

New currency: eridium. Can be used to buy stuff on the black market, like inventory upgrades, and to perform special alien upgrades on guns.

Lots of new bad guys - mobs and bosses - including some that will evolve Pokemon style into much more dangerous forms if you don't kill them quickly.

Character skins and heads:

Spoiler:

New element: slag! Slagged enemies are more susceptible to damage.

You can move while in Fight For Your Life mode - yay!

New end game raid boss -- Terramorphous the Invincible -- supposed to make Crawmerax look like a sea monkey.

Gearbox has committted to 4 DLC, along the lines of Knoxx in scope they say, by June of 2013. Price is $10 each (or comparable) and there is a season pass to get all 4 for $30.

Posts

It's a shooter with light RPG elements and a heavy emphasis on loot gathering (a la Diablo/Titan Quest/WoW, but GUNS!) in a distinctive art style set in a sci fi Mad Maxy/Firefly-y backwater planet.

The single-player is terrific, but the game really shines in co-op with up to 3 other players. It is an ambitious new IP from developer Gearbox and has some real flaws and bone-headed design decisions. If shooting and looting is your cup of tea, though, there is WAAAAY more to like than to dislike.

#1 Zombie Island:PRO: Fun, good sized new areas to explore with entertaining new main and side quests, arguably better story than main game, more stuff to do for your characters esp. if Playthrough 2 is not your bag, zombie baddies are generally interestingCON: Doesn't increase level cap, no one is shooting at you, zombies are dark against dark background, no fast travel or vehicles (lots of running), spitter zombies are a bit bullshit and penalize melee buildsWHEN TO PLAY: The enemies scale, so you can play anytime after level 10. If you are playing the main game at the time, though, you will be significantly over-leveled when you return.OVERALL: Most folks seem to like it. Word of advice, get the Braaaaains quest sooner rather than later:

Spoiler:

#2 Moxxi's Underdome Riot:PRO: Hardcore, Only place to run your so-called badass characters against a crucible of wave after wave of attackers, Moxxi (the character) is awesome - very funny, Gun bank & Claptrap w/ monocle, two extra skill points available (one for each playthrough)CON: Hard. Core. No experience, no loot drops (except for a few unremarkable drops from Moxxi after each five waves), all-or-nothing 25 or 100 round events - no pausing, no saving, no incremental progress, no Spiderants (probably a PRO for some)WHEN TO PLAY: Any time. There's no experience and no loot to speak of, so you can Moxxi it up any time and return to any storyline without impact.OVERALL: A few want exactly this. For most it is just too much effort for too little reward. If you are a completionist or just want the skill points, get a lowbie to host and just run through it with higher level characters.

#3 Secret Armory of General KnoxxPRO: Big, interesting new enemies, good times with favorite characters, new characters and story, funny, Level cap increased to 61, great loot after finishing main story, farmable superboss, new vehicles, new superrare weapon rarityCON: Very hard, especially the first few encounters. No fast travel - so lots and lots of driving (not great for just playing 20 min)WHEN TO PLAY: Playthrough 1 badguys start at level 35 and Playthrough 2 start at 50. If you want to play the main game, Knoxx and Zombie Island, you could do worse than playing them in that order.OVERALL: Pretty awesome actually. Some folks are put off by the difficulty or all the driving. Most seem to enjoy it and some (including me) think it's handily the best of the 4.

PC Players Can Mod in Fast Travel in Knoxx

Some handy person on the GB forums created a mod for fast travel to the various Knoxx locations, here (aka teleport mod, oasis mod, knoxx hub mod).

Just make sure you have a nice Anarchy, Fire gun, Electric gun, and corrosive gun. Maggots get killed by electric, armored craws by corrosive, green craws by fire, and crawmerax by the anarchy. The high fire rate and spread f the anarchy makes it so you just fire in the general direction of the bosses weak spots, even when you can't see them.

#4 Claptrap RevolutionPRO: Big. Shooting claptraps. Fantastic (super farmable) reward at end of storyline quest. A few good laughs.CON: Recycled enemies get old fast, especially bosses. First DLC done by someone other than Gearbox and it shows in terms of consistency of gameplay, design and especially humor. Two of the absolute least interesting fetch quests in the history of video games. Multiple achievements based on obscure random drops.WHEN TO PLAY: Post Knoxx.OVERALL: Lots of negative feelings about this one from many of the core players. If you want more Bordlerlands and maybe some new places to put all the loot you got from Knoxx through it's paces, this DLC will deliver. Just don't expect the highs of Zombie Island or Knoxx.

Helpful Advice for New Players

The accuracy stat on weapons is surprisingly important. Accuracy is the percentage change for your shot to go down the center of the targeting reticule. So most starter shotguns, for example, w/ accuracy stats like 11, won't hit anything more than 10 feet away. Some weapons may feel 'loose' until you find a different gun or up your proficiency.

Inventory space is your most precious commodity out of the gate. Make hard decisions and sell most stuff you find that you aren't using. (This gets easier as you unlock your 3rd and 4th active weapon slot.) Some folks who hoard early find they have to spend all their money just to buy more ammo. If you sell almost all the stuff you find, you won't have this problem after the first few levels.

Contrary to standard RPG experience, you probably don't want to carry medkits around with you. There is no quick button for them, they heal over time, they are expensive, and they take up precious inventory space. Usually enough medkits will drop when you are fighting and pretty soon all characters have a low level skill that lets them either run away or get health or both.

When you can afford it, upgrade your ammo capacity for the 1-2 gun types you use most. Makes a big difference. You do this from the ammo kiosks by buying the ammo type SDU (Storage Deck Upgrade) upgrade.

Re-speccing is cheap and available at any of the New-U stations scattered throughout Pandora. Definitely play with builds once you get 10+ skill points to mess around with.

The kiosks rotate inventory every twenty minutes. Check often. It's not uncommon to find something really great. My first orange weapon ever came from a kiosk.

Level matters a lot in this game. If you face a baddie more than a couple levels above yours, your shots will do as much damage as spitballs. There's one storyline encounter in particular that will kick your ass if you go straight for it. If you find yourself getting completely trounced, do a couple of side missions. This is much less of a problem in general after you unlock vehicles.

When you first get a vehicle, read the pop-up, esp. how to lock on the turret. (Two of the three dumbest encounters of the game are bypassed quickly with turret lock on.)

If you do all the side missions you will pretty quickly be somewhat overleveled for the storyline missions (after the first 2-3 bosses). If you are finding the game to be too easy, ease up on the side missions (and/or try using some different weapons.)

There are a bunch of "challenges," basically in-game achievements, you can get XP for. Melee X guys or Melt Y dudes w/ corrosive damage, that sort of thing. Access the list and view your progress in a subscreen off your quests screen.

When you play co-op, have the host log out last to minimize chances of lost data.

In almost all circumstances, the machine gun car is better than the rocket car.

Skags burn nicely.

Tips w/ Very Minor Spoilers

Spoiler:

When you first start a game, follow the Claptrap's instructions until he unlocks the town gate and you hear bandit cars roaring overhead. Then stop, go to the nearby hotel (behind you) and loot the ammo around it. Jump on top of the building to find a weapon chest. Whatever you find is almost guaranteed to be better than your starting weapon. Then there is another little area against some rocks opposite the hotel from the gate that has some more ammo and money.

You will unlock fast travel and won't have to run around everywhere, but not in the first 15 or so levels.

Every Claptrap you save after the first gives you a Backpack SDU upgrade. You have to activate it in your inventory, and when you do you get three glorious more inventory slots (42 max, 45 w/ a bug). Prioritize saving Claptraps accordingly.

Similarly, you will find artifacts that imbue your class special ability with an elemental effect. You have to activate it from your inventory. If you get a message that you can't use it, either 1) it's for another class, or 2) you already have that level of elemental ability (there are 6 levels.) When you have multiple elements, you can change which element is active from the skills screen. It's a diamond to the left of your main ability.

In 90% of the games I've played, when you first fix the medkit/shield machine, the special sale item is a slightly improved shield with a slow health regen. Hugely useful. If you've looted everything to that point, you will be able to buy it.

FAQ's

Yes, you can respec your skill tree for a nominal fee. You go to a New-U station, which are pretty much everywhere (as soon as you enter a new area, you're next to one) and you can do it there for a certain percent of your wealth.

Where is the last piece?! For find-the-pieces quests, your quest marker only points you to the general area. If you can't find the last piece, use the treasure marker on your HUD instead of the quest marker.

You can play with multiples of the same class. Four Bricks? No problem.

Class mods require at least one skill point in whatever they are buffing. No points in Silent Resolve? No buff from the mod.

Class mods CAN exceed the normal five point limit of skills.

You can play with people of a higher or lower level than yourself, you'll get mad XP if you're the lower level player. Be advised there's a bug where you may get all their quests, which is confusing but shouldn't actually break anything.

Artifacts are consumed, not equipped. Activate it from your inventory and then go to your skill tree, and click the diamond-shaped box to the left of your main class skill. You'll get a list of every artifact you've used. Pick whatever is best for the situation! (If you can't consume an artifact from inventory its either for a different class or you already have that level (of up to 6.))

Getting a second car w/ 3-4 players is not intuitive. There's a tab in the vehicle spawn stations (use the shoulder button or mouse to access) for a second vehicle. That said, sometimes it's fun to just push a friend around Pandora with the front of your car.

Steam achievements were added in August 2010. Here's a list of which ones are retroactive and which ones you'll have to do or redo.

There's a setting in WillowEngine.ini: "OneFrameThreadLag=true"
Change it to false if you don't want one frame of lag between your mouse motion and rendering.
Make sure you also have the previously OP listed "bEnableMouseSmoothing" value set to false.

This made a HUGE difference for me, the game feels so much more responsive now, especially in online play.

Also, chat messages are stored, so upon pressing Y again (this also works with T), just press the up arrow key to cycle through previously sent messages. This can be easier/faster than typing in the friends' name every time.

Note that you do NOT see what you have typed after pressing enter, it just closes the chat window.
There also seems to be a more forgiving queue with messages like this, for example if you send a message while your friend is zoning, logging in, etc.
On the downside, the fucking message still only displays on-screen for the standard 5 seconds, and as far as I know, there is no keystroke to pull up a window of previous messages/chats.

I did this by editing the .INI files before launching the game. In WillowEngine.ini, I changed Fullscreen to false, changed ResX to 1600, and ResY to 900. So I run 1600x900 windowed on my 1680x1050 monitor. However, I think if you go poking around in the video settings after manually changing the .INI, the game will stomp your tweaks when it saves video settings. So make your preferred video changes in-game first, exit the game and twiddle the .INI, then relaunch.

How to change FOV:
>> my documents\games\borderlands\willowgame

open willowinput.ini
add
Bindings=(Name="F10",Command="FOV 90",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)
add it amongst the other bindings, change the fov to whatever you want and switch it by the corresponding keys

How to turn off In-Game Voice Chat:

>> my documents\games\borderlands\willowgame
open willowengine.ini

find bHasVoiceEnabled=true
change it to false and you wont be transmitting voice all the time. Then you can use a better voice chat system, like Steam VOIP or Ventrilo. At least until Gearbox decides to patch this version up

(shamelessly stolen from the GBX forums )

If the mouse feels odd to you, try this:

>> my documents\games\borderlands\willowgame

open willowinput.ini

Find bEnableMouseSmoothing=true, change to false

How to turn off the opening splash screens:

1) Navigate to My Documents\My Games\Borderlands\WillowGame\Config
2) Open WillowEngine.ini
3) Search for "FullScreenMovie"
4) Erase all the entries in the [FullScreenMovie] section (Do not go past the next section title, wrapped in square brackets!)
5) Make the file read only: (Right click, properties, read only)
6) Done! All you see now is the engine logos and such (much better than seeing all the other videos).

Until we get an active metatag again, folks who want to play General Knoxx can request in the thread to be listed here. Format is "PAName = XBoxName" and you'd better use the yellow or else (I might miss you).

So I just noticed something pretty cool about the BL2 release date trailer. The song it uses is Nero - Doomsday, which has been showing up a lot in trailers for games and movies. Armored Core V and GI Joe Retaliation both use it, for instance. The song contains samples of the date of doomsday being announced ("December 1, 2808"). But the Borderlands 2 trailer does something clever with that to fit in their release date - they've overdubbed every mention of that date in the song to "September 18, 2012". So, they weren't just using a neat pseudo-dubstep track with 96.5% more wub-wub, they were using a track with a date mentioned in it quite specifically.

HarshLanguage on March 2012

> turn on lightGood start to the day. Pity it's going to be the worst one of your life. The light is now on.

I may be buying the 360 version, but that letter is marketing genius and just makes me love these guys more.

This has been a great year for me RPG wise too. Kingdoms of Amalur, Skyrim (albeit technically last year but I didn't play it until January), Mass Effect 3, Witcher 2 (Didn't play the PC version), Dragons Dogma (I think it looks good) and Borderlands 2. Every month just about filled with RPG goodness!

My Brick is up to level 37 and I'm running through Knoxx. This game is great 4 player, but a little grindy solo. Also, I'm still using a gun I found like 15 levels ago (Blast Hammer).

I found a great rocket launcher that rips through things, but since it fires 5 rockets at once ammo is the biggest issue at the moment. Even with level 8 Blast Master I just can't seem to keep rockets stocked. Really sucks for those long stretches without an ammo store.

Nice try with that love letter. I'd like to believe that you can show up without being crippled by a shoddy archaic multiplayer interface. And readable menus? I've heard that before! Do you think that you can just show up here claiming to have changed and that makes everything all better? V-sync too?

So I just noticed something pretty cool about the BL2 release date trailer. The song it uses is Nero - Doomsday, which has been showing up a lot in trailers for games and movies. Armored Core V and GI Retaliation both use it, for instance. The song contains samples of the date of doomsday being announced ("December 1, 2808"). But the Borderlands 2 trailer does something clever with that to fit in their release date - they've overdubbed every mention of that date in the song to "September 18, 2012". So, they weren't just using a neat pseudo-dubstep track with 96.5% more wub-wub, they were using a track with a date mentioned in it quite specifically.